Creative Business Transformation Lions: Jury Insights with Jane Lin-Baden

As jury president of the Creative Business Transformation category at Cannes Lions this year, Publicis Groupe’s APAC CEO Jane Lin-Baden led a diverse jury of clients, strategists as well as business and creative leaders.

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Q> What key themes or innovations stood out for you this year?

Jane> What really inspired me was the longevity and scale of creative solutions that our industry is building for the world’s well-known brands. A few themes that emerged in our jury room include:

#1 The evolution of purpose – There are brands that attach themselves to a purpose as an accessory, or add-on, to drive awareness of a cause. And then there are brands that weave purpose into the very core of their organisation. Brands are moving beyond tokenistic nods to social good towards truly impactful platforms that integrate purpose into every aspect of their organisation and operations, and as a result, deliver true commercial impact over a sustained period of time.

#2 From ads to ecosystems – Today’s most transformative creative ideas extend far beyond advertising: they impact everything from commercial models to supply chains, legal contracts, suppliers, patents and stakeholders – in other words, the entire ecosystem that supports products and services.

#3 Driving category reinvention – This year’s most transformative ideas didn’t just grow brands; they redefined entire categories. By reframing consumer expectations and changing the rules of engagement, brands are emerging as leaders in the categories they are redefining.

Q> Were there campaigns that shifted your perspective on creative transformation?

Jane> The Grand Prix winner, AXA’s Three Words campaign, touches on all of the themes above. By adding three words to an existing policy, AXA broadened the home insurance category to include anything that may damage a home – from fire, to flood, and even domestic violence. By giving the category a different meaning, AXA now owns the category of 'household insurance' very differently. Changing AXA’s most popular home insurance product meant engaging its legal department, overhauling its commercial model, aligning internal stakeholders and assessing liability risk. It is a complete system overhaul that sets the benchmark for organisational change. What our jury appreciated most is that this work retroactively changed AXA’s existing 2.5 million household contracts – an act with such scale that it contributed to significant sales growth and brand impact for AXA.

It was interesting to see how brands are supporting not only their customers, but their distributors and stakeholders, too. Backing the Bars campaign secures Heineken’s customer base by supporting the stakeholders and bar owners who stock their product – in other words, it’s a platform that supports the entire ecosystem that supports Heineken products. The Jury also appreciated the longevity of Heineken’s support for its beer ecosystem: building bars is building Heineken.

Suncorp’s Building a More Resilient Australia epitomises the evolution of purpose. By embedding the brand’s purpose of helping families reduce household damage caused by severe weather events at the core of its organisation, Suncorp creatively developed services and utility beyond its insurance products, most recently with the Haven platform. Its resilience initiatives deliver value to customers, and as a result, bring value back to the business through increased market share, consideration uplifts and customer lifetime value. Our jury appreciated the longevity of Suncorp’s transformation with several projects launched over the past five years, as well as its focus on building brand and business by creating a strong resilience ecosystem for customers.

Q> Were there any interesting debates inside your jury room this year?

Jane> One debate that took place was understanding the difference between proven business impact versus future potential to drive sustainable business results. Should we reward work based on current business results and proven commercial models? Or should the winning work also demonstrate the potential to scale in future? The brands that achieve both deserve higher recognition.

We also saw some incredible textbook examples of brand platforms with long-term impact, which have not evolved to fit in today’s social and political climate. They did not make it past our shortlist this year. To win in this category, there must be an evolution of the brand platform. It’s a Cheetos Thing is a good example. This long-standing platform has continually evolved, putting creativity and humour at the heart of each new instalment to stay funny and fresh.

Q> Why is this category important in today’s business climate?

Jane> Agencies are playing a pivotal role in helping brands reshape how their business operates, engage customers and deliver business value and long-term results beyond concepts. Our industry is moving beyond one-off marketing campaigns that drive sales and awareness. Today’s most impactful agencies are mobilising entire business ecosystems to impact supply chain, legal contracts, company culture, stakeholders and more.

Creative Business Transformation is especially relevant in today’s business climate. This year’s Cannes winners demonstrated the expanding role of creativity in navigating change and solving business problems at a time of uncertainty.

Jane Lin-Baden was jury president of Creative Business Transformation at Cannes Lions 2025. Read her pre-Cannes interview with LBB here.